“Following up on the latest stunning revelations released yesterday by German Spiegel which exposed the spy agency’s 50 page catalog of “backdoor penetration techniques”, today during a speech given by Jacob Applebaum (@ioerror) at the 30th Chaos Communication Congress, a new bombshell emerged: specifically the complete and detailed description of how the NSA bugs, remotely, your iPhone,” Tyler Durden reports for Zero Hedge.

Durden reports, “The way the NSA accomplishes this is using software known as Dropout Jeep, which it describes as follows: ‘DROPOUT JEEP is a software implant for the Apple iPhone that utilizes modular mission applications to provide specific SIGINT functionality. This functionality includes the ability to remotely push/pull files from the device. SMS retrieval, contact list retrieval, voicemail, geolocation, hot mic, camera capture, cell tower location, etc. Command, control and data exfiltration can occur over SMS messaging or a GPRS data connection. All communications with the implant will be covert and encrypted.'”

Durden reports, “What is perhaps just as disturbing is the following rhetorical sequence from Applebaum: ‘Do you think Apple helped them build that? I don’t know. I hope Apple will clarify that. Here’s the problem: I don’t really believe that Apple didn’t help them, I can’t really prove it but [the NSA] literally claim that anytime they target an iOS device that it will succeed for implantation. Either they have a huge collection of exploits that work against Apple products, meaning that they are hoarding information about critical systems that American companies produce and sabotaging them, or Apple sabotaged it themselves. Not sure which one it is. I’d like to believe that since Apple didn’t join the PRISM program until after Steve Jobs died, that maybe it’s just that they write shitty software. We know that’s true.’ Or, Apple’s software is hardly ‘shitty’ even if it seems like that to the vast majority of experts (kinda like the Fed’s various programs), and in fact it achieves precisely what it is meant to achieve.”

No wonder Apple et al. are scared to death about potential losses of business over this Orwellian nightmare and are now calling for government surveillance reform. Sans Snowden, ’tis doubtful, sadly, that we’d have heard a peep from any of these companies, including Apple.

American citizens: If you do not stand up for your rights now, you never will.

Don’t buy iPhones, iwatches, apple computers or any tech if it bothers you that the NSA uses it to watch you every moment, and if it bothers you that the PuppetMasters like Google and other companies access your ideas for their own profit and at your loss.

You have to be a special kind of idiot to think NBC news is leftist. Or any of the corporate media for that matter. I guess its nice to live in that set of fantasy make believe world. Easier anyway than reality.

Well, I don’t believe Apple write ‘shitty software’, after all, various ‘black hat’ groups seem to find exploits that can only be executed by physical contact with the phone.
However, with the billions of dollars, and massive computing power available, I’m quite prepared to believe that the NSA can hack anything they want to. This article sounds like massive FUD to me.
Where’s the same talk about Android? An American designed and produced OS that’s in use all over the world, and which everyone knows has more holes than a Swiss cheese. Who would notice anything that the NSA shoved into it?

Many people in The Netherlands (where I am from) and other countries just shrug their shoulders because they ‘don’t have anything to hide’ and ‘it’s for our safety’. In the mean time we lose all the rights and liberties we fought for hundreds of years. The fear for terrorism brings us more harm than terrorism itself and all we do is surrender.

North Korea warns its people that at any moment outside invaders will attack, so for the duration, for their safety, they all have to do their part and sacrifice for the common good. That’s why they have foul poverty, no human rights, and are hyped for war. It’s a common practice for police states to use fear for absolute control over a populace, but it makes for a societal Dark Age. The Founding Fathers of the US had a decent solution with the US constitution. This government has destroyed the fourth amendment and, if allowed, will destroy the rest of the Bill of Rights. I now vote against all sitting politicians because corruption today in government is total.

Its barely a Blackberry since it is special hardware and software device that took years to develop and there only a handful of them.
Anyone who knows anything about security knows security through obscurity is a foolish idea.

So if they have been doing this for years there must be someone here who has been hurt. I would like to see some examples of how this has been affecting folks. After all they have been doing this since the patriot act began. So tell us your stories of how you have been arrested or any other negative operation. Surely there are stories.

That’s not how oppression works Coppertop! The way it works is that all your data is stored until “needed”. Now lets say you want to do something to change the world…well if Obama doesn’t like that change, he can just whip out the data on your ass and beat you with it till you quit. Or, if its something really big you plan to do against the establishment, he might even use the data to “accidentally” control your car straight into a lamppost like Michael Hastings. Or, how about something less deadly but just as effective; say you want to get employed at some key position, or you simply want to fly somewhere……well you might find yourself shutout of the job or on a nobly list for reasons you never even knew about.

You sound remarkably paranoid. Just because you can imagine some event happening, doesn’t mean that it will.

What’s also curious is that you appear nervous about the most unlikely part of all, which is Obama being pissed off at some person, and suddenly their credit is destroyed or some such thing.

While our government misusing its power isn’t unusual, such as COINTELPRO there is no evidence that Obama is somehow directly behind what the NSA is doing–and that they have in fact probably been doing it for more years than we know–so why you’re personalizing this, when all indications are that this program existed long before Obama (and probably Bush) came into office is a bit curious.

Yeah, I bet you’ve never heard of Jason Schwartz. Do a Google search and check out some of what overbearing prosecutor mis-conduct looks like and just how far Government agents will go. Bet you won’t think it’s so paranoid then!!

There are many people affected by the un-patriot act. My employer, a law enforcement agency, placed me on a threat assessment list in retaliation for performing my duties as an auditor. I have been slandered and blacklisted. My career was ruined and my character assassinated in my community. I’m followed everywhere I go and under surveillance 24/7. This is my 4th IPhone. They hack into my phone and computer. I installed surveillance cameras and hacked into that too. The intelligence community is out of control and the government allows it. My complaints have fallen on deaf ears. The country is infested with informants that are ready to submit your name on a SAR.